#NaNoNosk 2020

It was a regular day in the outer rings of the 'verse. The bird were flying high and fast carrying messages and doing loops and tricks. I was on my way from my home server to one of the markets on the inner edge of the outer circles in an attempt to buy a passport for the inner rings. Rumors and whispers had told me it would cost at least a couple thousand quids, and my sources had narrowed that down to two thousand quid. Two thousand quid which I had now finally saved up by doing odd jobs and strange requests.

I had the money, now I just needed to find the right place, and I was only waiting for one thing: The bird with the server list. Before I could peruse the markets, I had to make a jump through a link to one of the servers hosting a market entrance. The markets were a huge collection of rooms each linked to a couple others, but only a few of the rooms allowed jumps in from anywhere. And since I wasn't a regular at the markets, I had to find an entrance I could jump to, and that's where the server list came in. I had asked the controller of my home server to find me a list of open market entrances, and while they agreed, they also told me it would take a while. So I sat here waiting, looking at the sky in dim blue and light grey colors, waiting for the bird to arrive. As the sky turned from blue to orange, I spotted a bird heading my direction. I stood up and reached out my arm to catch the message, and as the bird reached me, it dissolved into digital artifacts and fading transparent voxels. It left a tiny box in my hand. I inspected the box and found the mechanism to open it, and as it unfolded in my hand, a short list of rooms appeared in the air in front of me, each with an ephemeral key attached. Since I had no idea which entrance would put me closer to my goal, I picked one at random at held on tight to it. At first, nothing happened, and it felt like my heart skipped a beat, but then the link opened, and my consciousness was instantly pulled from my home with the birds and the now orange sky.

I opened my eyes in a new location. A new room on a different server. Or at least, the room was new to me. It looked like it had served as a market entrance for an uncountably long time, and there were random artifacts seemingly thrown all over the place. It looked like a mess. I had found myself in a small enclosure with a single arching doorway in the far wall. I stepped off the link platform and looked out of the opening. More walls, more mess, and more doorways. I didn't have to walk far to find the first market stall though. After turning a corner I stood at one end of a long line of stalls displaying an endless variety of colorful trinkets and things and stuff. So much stuff. But none of them had what I was looking for, so I had to keep walking.

I had been told that there were partial maps scattered around the markets, but it was hard to know whether a map was up to date, since the markets kept rearranging their overall layout as rooms disconnected, and connected in new places. Some rooms even had a set time where they were open and connected and if you didn't get in - or worse, get out - before it closed, there was nothing to do but wait for the next scheduled connection. As I walked in search of a map, I passed by a few doorways that suddenly appeared in the middle of a wall, and often they showed me yet another alley of stalls. And just as many doorways closed and faded into the wall as I neared or after I had walked past. But finally, turning a corner and seeing a deadend, my luck was with me. Just in front of me, inscribed in the wall was a labyrinthine pattern, which I immediately recognized as a self-updating network map. Looking closely, I could even see how some lines broke in two to let small sections of the network faded away from the wall, and how other lines suddenly started branching and connecting, describing a new room or group of alleys connecting to the market. All over the map, next to the twisting and turning lines, there were tiny symbols and glyphs describing the goods and services available in that area. I stuck my hand into my pocket and pulled out a small piece of paper, that had been folded up several times. Unfolding it, I revealed the single symbol drawn inside, which would represent the stall I was looking for. Now I just had to find it on the map, and - not least - find a route to it, that was likely to be stable enough for me to get there.

I studied the map for hours, and while I found the symbol within the first hour, all my attempts at finding a route was cut short by the markets rearranging or at one point the symbol itself completely disconnecting from the map.

My thirteenth attempt at finding a route was suddenly disrupted. Not only by the section of map I was looking at disappearing, but also by the ominous sound of the only door out of here closing behind me. I spun around and confirmed my fear. The doorway was gone, and only blank wall remained. Even the map I had been studying was gone, showing only a single square with the map symbol in it.

I was trapped in this room with nothing to do but wait. And that's when I felt the weirdest thing I had ever experienced. Everything slowed around me. Not that anything was moving in any case, but even the movement of the air slowed. Even I was slowed, my muscles reacting as if they were under water. My breath slowed. My thoughts slowed. My heartbeat slowed. Time itself was running at half speed and still slowing down.

It didn't take long for my sense of time to adapt to this new way of the world. But I also completely lost track of how much time was passing outside the room.

Time passed. Slowly. At first I was just sitting there, waiting. Then I started looking at all the small details in the wall, in the ceiling, in the floor. I started looking between the details. I crossed my eyes and looked at nothing. Looked at the air in front of me. Then pushed my focus forward, away from me, towards the wall. For a fraction of a moment the wall was perfectly sharp, but I kept my focus going forward. Into the distance. I was looking through the walls, along parallel lines, at nothing. But something was there. I started to see the threads behind the wall. The things holding it all together. The ties between the points.

[skipped a scene here: time returns to normal as a door opens, and our protagonist finds a good route on the map and succeeds in following it to the stall]

I had finally found the shop I had been looking for. It was a narrow little alley marked with the same symbol used on the map. Over the entrance hang several sheets of faded colored cloth, that I pushed aside as I entered. Around my feet, above my head and on both sides of me hang and laid numerous baubles and odd accessories. A basket was filled with cloth bandanas in psychedelic colors, a shelf had transparent balls and globes with marking and symbols, and one hook after another held everything from hats to necklaces and paper lamps to wire sculptures. I went in deeper to find someone I could talk to and bargain with.

I knew they wouldn't have a inner ring passport lying around in the open where anyone could see it, and I was prepared to use everything in my arsenal to convince the shopkeeper to sell one to me. I found them reclining on a wooden chair in the back end of the shop. As I approached they looked up from beneath a widebrimmed hat but otherwise didn't stir from their seat.

When I told them that I was here to buy a passport, nodded at me and without a word stood up and disappeared through a door hidden behind a curtain.

The nearest boxes and shelves held black porcelain of varying degrees of practicality. One end of a shelf held a plain stack of plates while the other held tiny intricate figurines, that might be possible to assemble into half a chess set - all of it was jet black. But in the corner partly obscured behind even more black porcelain I spotted a jar made of brown stoneware. The jar was almost cylindrical, had a cork stopper in the top and looked rough and out of place next to the smooth porcelain.

I walked over and picked it up, feeling the weight of it in my hand. Something - a strange feeling I couldn't explain - gave me the urge to open it just to see what was inside. Moving the jar around it felt like it had some kind of thick liquid inside, but nothing like anything I've known before. I grabbed the cork and it took all my strength to even make it squeak let alone remove the stopper. The jerk of my arm flying backwards surprised me, but I managed to stop before toppling a shelf filled with porcelain. As I turned my attention back to the jar, the feeling of liquid inside had vanished, as if it had been a pressurized gas that I didn't notice escaping. I was puzzled for a moment about what it could have been, but then she spoke up from behind me.

"You're not from around here, are you?" She tilted her head slightly as if the answer to her question wasn't obvious. Then she proceded to stare into my eyes as if trying to peer into my soul.

"N-no? Why would I be? It's not like anyone is born here in the markets," I answered, slightly flustered by her sudden appearance. Then doubt and insecurity gripped me and I added, "are they?"

"You're right, people aren't exactly born around here," she chuckled, "but some have been here longer than others."

"Oh, you're asking if I'm new here! Well, yes, I am that. I'm only here looking for a passport to the inner server rings. I only just entered the markets a few..." I trailed off as I tried to gather how long it had been since entering the market, but that admin-forsaken map room had me completely thrown off track. I managed to break my momentary trance and finish "... days ago, I think." Then I remembered the woman I was talking to and added "how about you, have you been in these parts long?"

She gave me a quizzical look before answering, "long? Long would be an understatement. I've been here longer than it'd be interesting to tell stories about. A passport, you say? So you're a traveller then. I thought there was some special gleam in your eyes. You're one who's in it for the peculiar details, if I'm not wrong. You've seens things, explored wherever you fancied, and now you're keen on seeking adventure among the movers and makers of the rich and powerful." She took a few slow steps closer as she monologued, still keeping her deep, colorful eyes locked one mine. "Tell me if I'm wrong about you, but I don't think I am. When I look into your eyes I can see there's something different there. Something miniscule that picks apart the mundane and finds the truth behind the veils." As she finished her short speech, she was standing right in front of me, inches from my face.

I could feel her warm breath blow past my chin, and I realized I had unwittingly backed up against the wall. She had me as good as pinned and was even leaning slighly with as hand against the wall behind me. It was as if time stopped - once again - and everything stood still. After an eternity of tension, she broke the silence with four words, "I like you," and then with a single finger she softly poked my nose, "boop".

Everything flashed. My eyes went blind, but a blinding white light. My ears stopped, sound disappeared. My lungs stood still and my heart skipped at least one beat. And then the world returned and she was nowhere to be seen. I gasped, drawing breath as if I had been diving deep under water. Looking down at my hands, I realized I still stood with the cylindrical stonework jar in one hand and the cork stopper in the other. In a fit of anxiety, I replaced the cork stopper and quickly put the jar back on the shelf behind the black porcelain.

And with good timing, because just as I did, the shopkeeper returned with a "admiring the porcelain are we?"

I spun around only slightly flabbergasted and very focused on not toppling anything. "Uh, yes. It's an interesting style with this deep black color. Is it very popular?" I asked in an attempt to be just curious enough to be polite.

"Never sold any of them," was their curt reply, "now, back to the passport business. I have a few to look at, if you'd be kind enough to step closer."

Quickly gathering myself, I stepped up to see what they held in their hands. It was a number of flat, folded objects, all of them light blue of various nuances. Most of them were a pale, dusty blue, but a few of them were almost glowing in their pastel brightness. I had nothing to go by, so I picked a bright one by random.

"This one, where would that take me?" I asked naively.

"Where would it take you? To the inner ring of course, where else would you buy a passport for, girl?" Their brows furrowed as they spoke, as if they were trying to discern just how clueless a customer they were dealing with.

"Yes, I know," I quickly snapped back, "but which gate would it let me through? I need to know where I'm going to land, before I buy anything."

"You're saying you don't even have a specific link in mind and you've just gone shopping for the first and the best passport to anywhere inwards you could find? Well, you're in luck, because you happened to point at the best and widest accessing passport anyone will ever sell you in this market. I can guarantee you that it'll take you through almost any gate to the Inner Rings, and a few gates inside as well."

"Sounds useful," I hesitantly replied, unsure how far my hard earned savings would carry me. "What'd it cost me?"

"For you, my newest friend, I'll sell it for one and a half meg," they offered, throwing their best approximation of a dashing smile.

"That's ridiculous!" I would have laughed at the absurd number, if not for the fact that I'd be dead in the water and stuck without a passport. "I'm not going to pay more than a million quid just for a passport."

They chuckled softly. "Well, then you should have picked a less shiny one." They pulled a dull slate blue passport from the stack and held it up, "might I suggest this one. It will take you through three of the most popular gates, and it can be yours for the low low price of twenty five thousand quid."

I almost cut off his offer with a disinterested "what's the cheapest one you've got?"

"Limited budget, eh? In that case I have this one lying around. It might look old and dented, but it'll take you through a gate just as well as any other passport. I'll let you have it for nineteen hundred quid, but you'll have to.."

This time I cut them off by pulling out my stack of quids and slapping them on the nearest shelf. "Deal!" I almost yelled while pulling the tiny, almost-not-blue plate out of their hand.

"If you would have let me finish, I would have told you that the gate is only open for a few hours at at time and sometimes with days or weeks between openings. In any case, if you open the passport, you'll find the location and name of the gate it can access inside. Good luck."

And with that, they scooped up the rest of the passports and disappeared back into the doorway slightly hidden behind a curtain.

[Author's note: I forgot to include a plot point in the price discussions about how a surprisingly long time had passed while the protagonist was stuck in the map room. And I should also have added more haggling, instead of just the shopkeeper listing prices.]